War Without End

Alpha

http://www.the-signal.com

SCV Man Linked to Iraq Abuse

5/27/2004
Leon Worden City Editor

A Canyon Country man is one of four people accused of being responsible for
abuse at the Abu Ghraib prison outside Baghdad.
An Army report implicates John B. Israel, a 48-year-old civilian
contractor hired by the Army as a translator, as “either directly or
indirectly responsible for the abuses at Abu Ghraib.”
Maj. Gen. Antonio Taguba’s report on the abuse of prisoners — the
so-called “Taguba Report” — also accuses Israel of lying to Army
investigators about witnessing improper interrogations.
The report shows there was a breakdown in command authority and a
blurring of the lines between interpreting and interrogating at the prison.
It quotes military prison guards as saying both military intelligence
officers and civilian contractors encouraged abuses, including stripping
prisoners naked and handcuffing them in painful positions.
In his report, Taguba calls for a formal inquiry to determine the guilt
of intelligence personnel at the prison. He writes:
“Specifically, I suspect that Col. Thomas M. Pappas, LTC Steve L.
Jordan, Mr. Steven Stephanowicz, and Mr. John Israel were either directly or
indirectly responsible for the abuses at Abu Ghraib, and strongly recommend
immediate disciplinary action ... as well as the initiation of (an) inquiry
to determine the full extent of their culpability.”
Pappas was the commander of the 205th Military Intelligence Brigade.
Jordan is the former director of the Joint Interrogation and Debriefing
Center. Stephanowicz is a civilian interrogator working under contract.
Taguba recommended that a formal reprimand go into Israel’s personnel
file because he lacked the required security clearance and he wrongfully
denied having seen interrogation processes that violated the Interrogation
Rules of Engagement.
According to The New York Times, Israel told Army investigators in a
brief written statement that he arrived in Iraq on Oct. 14 and served as a
translator for military intelligence. Asked if he had “witnessed any acts of
abuse,” he wrote, “No I have not.”
According to the Taguba report, several witnesses said he did.
Israel is believed to have returned to the Santa Clarita Valley from
Iraq about a month ago.
Contacted by The Signal at their home in a newer Canyon Country
neighborhood, Israel’s wife, Roza, acknowledged hearing about the
allegations but refused to comment on them.
“I’m instructed not to say anything until we get an attorney,” she said
Wednesday. “I haven’t even had an opportunity to discuss it with (John).”
Her husband is out of town until next week and has not yet hired an
attorney, she said.
Born in Baghdad in 1955, Israel is described as an Iraqi-American
Christian. His home was still decorated for Christmas on Wednesday. The
Israels have lived in Santa Clarita with their three daughters for about 10
years and in their current house for a portion of that time.
A neighbor described them as loners who live modestly.
“They keep to themselves,” said the neighbor, who asked not to be
identified. “They’re flat-out unfriendly.”
“It’s pretty scary living next door to somebody accused of that, with
the state that the world is in,” she said. “It’s disturbing.”
The New York Times said Israel traveled Monday to the Washington, D.C.,
offices of his employer, SOS Interpreting Ltd. His continued employment
could not be verified Wednesday.
Based in New York, SOS is a 15-year-old company that, according to its
online job posting for an Arabic linguist, specializes in translation,
interpretation and foreign language training as well as “intelligence,
counterintelligence, psychological operations, counterterrorism,
counter-narcotics, peacekeeping and civil affairs, force protection, private
security” and related information services. Its job listings call for
applications from U.S. citizens.
SOS performed translating services for the Army Intelligence and
Security Command at Abu Ghraib. On Monday the company issued a statement
saying it “fully intends to cooperate with the Army and with Titan.”
Titan Corp. is a San Diego-based defense firm that subcontracted the
translation work to SOS. Titan President Gene Ray expressed his company’s
“distress and dismay over the horrific events at the Abu Ghraib prison in
Iraq” in a May 7 statement.
“To clarify inaccuracies in a number of news media reports,” his
statement said, “Titan’s role in Iraq is to serve as translators and
interpreters for the U.S. Army. The company’s contract is for linguists, not
interrogators.”
Only one of the 15 Titan and SOS translators working at Abu Ghraib last
fall possessed the necessary security clearance, the Taguba reported
indicated.
Titan has fired one interpreter, Adel L. Nakhla, of Gaithersburg, Md.,
whom Taguba named as a suspect.
Shareholders of Titan, a public company listed on the New York Stock
Exchange, will vote June 7 on a planned takeover by Lockheed Martin Corp.
The merger was delayed pending the outcome of an internal investigation into
alleged payments by Titan or its subsidiaries to foreign officials.
On May 17, Titan announced it has won a four-year contract potentially
worth $15 million to provide intelligence services to the Navy's Space and
Naval Warfare Systems Command Systems Center in San Diego.

The Associated Press contributed to this story.

Alpha

Taguba: Guards Heeded SCV (Santa Clarita Valley) Translator
http://www.the-signal.com/News/ViewStory.asp?storyID=4733

5/28/2004
Leon Worden City Editor

When Maj. Gen. Antonio Taguba told the Senate Armed Services Committee that two professional civilian contractors gave direction ? if not exactly orders ? to the guards at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, one of the civilians he referred to was a 48-year-old Santa Clarita resident.
John Benjamin Israel, an Iraqi-born American interpreter from Canyon Country, was ?either directly or indirectly responsible? for the mistreatment of Iraqi detainees, according to Taguba?s classified report on the improper interrogation tactics at the prison outside Baghdad.
Taguba completed the report in early March, and it was mistakenly released in late April.
Israel could not be reached Thursday. On Wednesday, his wife, Roza Israel, refused to discuss the allegations.
?I?m instructed not to say anything until we get an attorney,? she said.
Israel came to Santa Clarita from San Fernando around 1995 with Roza and their three daughters. They purchased their current home shortly after it was built seven years ago.
While one neighbor described Israel on Wednesday as a loner, others said Thursday that he is friendly and mild-mannered.
?He seems to be a very nice man. It seems so out of character that he would be accused of that,? said Blanche Muscia, who lives next door and frequently chats with Roza.
?He usually doesn?t speak until he?s spoken to,? Muscia said. ?I don?t think he has it in him to hit a man.?
John Israel reportedly told Army investigators he arrived in Iraq on Oct. 14 to work as an interpreter at Abu Ghraib under contract for Army intelligence. Muscia said Israel was back home in Santa Clarita the first week of April.
?He was an interpreter,? the neighbor said. ?I assumed he (served as) a go-between between the Americans and the Iraqis.?
Muscia said that prior to October, she knew Israel as ?a computer guy,? but he seemed to like his new job.
?I saw him a few weeks ago and he said he was going back to Iraq,? she said. ?I asked him why. It?s so dangerous. He said he needed the money.?
?He was really bent on going back. He said, ?I want to help my people. It?s my duty to try to help them.??
?He?s a Christian,? she added.
But Israel didn?t return to Iraq. By late April the so-called Taguba report had gone public and the Senate was gearing up for hearings.
Taguba?s report names only one interpreter ? John Israel ? and one interrogator, Steve Stephanowicz, a 34-year-old Philadelphia native recently living in Australia.
In his May 11 Senate testimony, Taguba said he ?personally interviewed a translator and I also personally interviewed an interrogator, both civilian contractors? ? referring to Stephanowicz, who did the interrogating, and Israel, who did the translating.
Taguba said the prison guards considered the two men their superiors, although the pair didn?t command any U.S. troops.
?They were not in any way supervising any soldiers, (military police) or otherwise,? Taguba told the Senate Armed Services Committee. ?However, the guards, those who were involved, looked at them as competent authority as in the manner by which they described them ? as ?the MI? (military intelligence officer), or by name, or by function.?
Taguba testified that the civilian interrogator and interpreter answered to the Joint Interrogation and Debriefing Center, which answered to a lieutenant colonel, Steve L. Jordan, who answered to the brigade commander, Col. Thomas M. Pappas.
?That was the chain (of command), sir,? Taguba told Sen. Daniel K. Akaka, D-Hawaii.
In his classified report, Taguba said the responsibility for the ?sadistic, blatant, and wanton criminal abuses? of prisoners, including stripping them naked and handcuffing them in painful positions, fell on the four men. He said Pappas, Jordan, Stephanowicz and Israel ?were either directly or indirectly responsible for the abuses at Abu Ghraib,? and he recommended ?immediate disciplinary action ... as well as the initiation of (an) inquiry to determine the full extent of their culpability.?
?At the end of the day,? Taguba told the Senate panel, ?a few soldiers and civilians conspired to abuse and conduct egregious acts of violence against detainees and other civilians outside the bounds of international law and the Geneva Convention.?
The Military Extraterritorial Jurisdiction Act of 1999 allows for the prosecution of civilian contractors who commit crimes while working overseas for the military. Attorney General John Ashcroft has said civilian contractors involved in the mistreatment or murder of Iraqi prisoners could be prosecuted for civil rights violations and for breaking anti-torture laws.
A spokesman for U.S. Rep. Howard ?Buck? McKeon, a member of the House Armed Services Committee and John Israel?s congressional representative, referred questions to the Army?s public affairs office.
?We believe that we are a democratic country and we will let the DOD (Department of Defense) investigation follow its proper course to get to the bottom of it,? McKeon spokesman Vartan Djihanian said.
An Army public affairs official wasn?t sure who is investigating civilian contractors implicated in the prison scandal.
?My best guess, and it?s only a guess, is that it would be the Army?s Criminal Investigation Command or the Department of Justice,? Army spokeswoman Deborah Parker said.
Justice officials did not return calls.
Reporting from inside Abu Ghraib prison earlier this month, a correspondent for the London Telegraph confirmed that Israel had left Iraq and reported that Stephanowicz was on leave from CACI International Inc., a private intelligence firm based in Richmond, Va., ?pending inquiries that could lead to criminal charges being brought against them.?
Israel worked through SOS Interpreting Ltd., a New York-based translation service whose stated specialties include intelligence, counterintelligence, force protection and ?psychological operations? for government agencies. SOS is under contract with Titan Corp. of San Diego to provide linguistic services at Abu Ghraib.
An SOS executive told The Signal on Thursday that Israel still works for the company and could not be contacted.
?We are not providing access to John Israel at this point,? Chief Financial Officer Bruce Crowell said in a phone message.
Another SOS official said Israel is on temporary assignment.
?It is true that John Israel works here,? Crowell said in a subsequent telephone interview. ?We are not at liberty to make any further comments, other than what we have said in a prepared statement.?
The statement said, ?SOS Interpreting Ltd. is a subcontractor to Titan (Corp.), responsible for employing, and then secunding (sic) to Titan and ultimately the Army, interpreters. SOS understands that the government is conducting reviews that may relate to issues regarding this subcontract. SOS intends to cooperate with the Army and Titan. It would be premature to comment further at this time.?
Crowell declined to answer questions about his company?s employment requirements. In its online job postings, SOS tends to advertise for U.S. citizens or longtime U.S. residents, and it pays about $75,000 for translation work overseas.
Public records show Israel owns his home. His 1993 bankruptcy was discharged in 2002.
Although prison translators require a U.S. security clearance, an Army spokeswoman couldn't corroborate Israel's citizenship and referred questions about his nationality to Titan.
A Titan executive said Israel is a U.S. citizen and he dismissed the current chatroom ?buzz? that he might be a foreign agent.
?I do know he?s an American,? Titan spokesman Will Williams said. ?Because of his last name, I have never in my life seen so much speculation. ... He?s just an American interpreter working for a subcontractor.?
One inconsistency in Taguba?s report is the listing of Israel as an employee of both Titan and CACI. He was not directly employed by Titan, and a personnel executive with CACI said Thursday she was unfamiliar with him.
The London Telegraph said three CACI contractors are still working with 30 military intelligence interrogators at Abu Ghraib and another six are employed as screeners to process detainees and determine whether they have any intelligence value. About 20 contract employees from SOS and Titan are still working at the prison as linguists.
Col. Foster Payne, newly in charge of interrogations at Abu Ghraib, defended the use of civilian contractors.
?They?re professionals in their own right,? Payne told The Telegraph. ?They have wide experience in the field and contribute to the team.?
?We?ve taken the actions of two people (Israel and Stephanowicz) and now we?re questioning whether we need to use contractors,? Payne lamented.
The scandal prompted a complete troop overhaul in February. The Telegraph reported that the ?abuse appears to have been stamped out? although a tour of the facility revealed that living conditions were still ?miserable and highly dangerous.?

Signal staff writers Lila Campuzano, Burt Stillar, Judy Ann Mook, Brandon Lowrey and Diana Sevanian contributed to this story.

Alpha

Subj: Re: Robert Fisk: Israeli Mossad/Shin Bet Association to Iraq Prison Torture S...
Date: 5/28/04 12:07:57 AM Pacific Daylight Time
From: jblankfort@earthlink.net

I mentioned to Fisk that the Times had reported that he was an Iraqi national and noted that Israel is an unusual name for an Iraqi but I realize later that he might be an Iraqi Jew who would speak Arabic and that would explain everything.

Jeff

Alpha

Subj: Robert Fisk: Israeli Mossad/Shin Bet Association to Iraq Prison Torture

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/fisk/story.jsp?story=524859

The things Bush didn't mention in his speech

The re-writing of Iraqi history is now going on at supersonic speed

By Robert Fisk

26 May 2004

I can't wait to see Abu Ghraib prison reduced to rubble by the Americans -
at the request of the new Iraqi government, of course. It will be turned to
dust in order to destroy a symbol of Saddam's brutality. That's what
President Bush tells us. So the re-writing of history still goes on.

Last August, I was invited to Abu Ghraib - by my favourite US General Janis
Karpinski, no less - to see the million-dollar US refurbishment of this
vile place. Squeaky clean cells and toothpaste tubes and fresh pairs of
pants for the "terrorist" inmates. But now, suddenly, the whole kit and
caboodle is no longer an American torture centre. It's still an Iraqi
torture centre, and thus worthy of demolition.

The re-writing of Iraqi history is now going on at supersonic speed.
Weapons of mass destruction? Forget it. Links between Saddam and al-Qa'ida?
Forget it. Liberating the Iraqis from Saddam's Abu Ghraib life of torture?
Forget it. Wedding party slaughtered? Forget it. Clear the decks for both
"full (sic) sovereignty" and "chaotic events". This is, at any rate,
according to Mr Bush. When I heard his hesitant pronunciation of Abu Ghraib
as "Abu Grub" on Monday night, I could only profoundly agree.

But we're in danger again of missing the detail. Just as the unsupervised
armed mercenaries being killed in Iraq are being described by the
occupation authorities as "contractors" or, more mendaciously, "civilians"
- so the responsibility for the porno interrogations at Abu Ghraib is being
allowed to slide into the summer mists over the Tigris river. So let's go
back, for a moment, to the long weeks in which the Department of Bad Apples
allowed its jerks to put leashes around Iraqi necks, forced prisoners to
have sex with each other and raped some Iraqi lasses in the jail.

And let's cast our eyes upon that little, all-important matter of
responsibility. The actual interrogators accused of encouraging US troops
to abuse Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib jail were working for at least one
company with extensive military and commercial contacts with Israel. The
head of an American company whose personnel are implicated in the Iraqi
tortures, it now turns out, attended an "anti-terror" training camp in
Israel and, earlier this year, was presented with an award by Shaul Mofaz,
the right-wing Israeli defence minister.

According to Dr J P London's company, CACI International, the visit of Dr
London - sponsored by an Israeli lobby group and including US congressmen
and other defence contractors - was "to promote opportunities for strategic
partnerships and joint ventures between US and Israeli defence and homeland
security agencies".

The Pentagon and the occupation powers in Iraq insist that only US citizens
have been allowed to question prisoners in Abu Ghraib - but this takes no
account of Americans who may also hold double citizenship. The once secret
torture report by US General Antonio Taguba refers to "third country
nationals" involved in the mistreatment of prisoners in Iraq.

General Taguba mentions Steven Staphanovic and John Israel as involved in
the abuses at Abu Ghraib. Staphanovic, who worked for CACI - known to the
US military as "Khaki" - was said by Taguba to have "allowed and/or
instructed MPs (military police), who were not trained in interrogation
techniques, to facilitate interrogations by 'setting conditions' ... he
clearly knew his instructions equated to physical abuse". One of
Staphanovic's co-workers, Joe Ryan - who was not named in the Taguba report
- now says that he underwent an "Israeli interrogation course" before going
to Iraq.

We know the Pentagon asked Israel for its "rules of engagement" in the
occupied West Bank and Gaza. Israeli officers have briefed their US
opposite numbers and, according to the Associated Press, "in January and
February of 2003, Israeli and American troops trained together in southern
Israel's Negev desert ... Israel has also hosted senior law enforcement
officials from the United States for a seminar on counter-terrorism".

Staphanovic of CACI, who may also be Australian, was accused by Taguba's
army report of making "a false statement to the investigation team
regarding ... his knowledge of abuses". Another outside interrogator, Adel
Nakhla,who may be of Egyptian origin, was a witness to the "stacking" of
naked prisoners in Abu Ghraib. John Israel "misled" investigators by
denying he had witnessed misconduct and did not have "security clearance".
Israel, according to Titan - two of whose employees were mentioned in
Taguba's report - works for one of the company's "sub-contractors". Titan
refused to name the "sub-contractor".

Why? Among the company's former directors is ex-CIA director James Woolsey,
one of the architects of the US invasion of Iraq, a friend of Ahmed Chalabi
and a prominent pro-Israeli lobbyist in Washington. Dr London says CACI
"does not condone or tolerate or endorse in any fashion (sic) any illegal,
inappropriate behaviour on the part of its employees in any circumstances
at any time anywhere".

But it is clear the torture trail at Abu Ghraib has to run much further
than a group of brutal US military cops, all of whom claim "intelligence
officers" told them to "soften up" their prisoners for questioning. Were
they Israeli? Or South African? Or British? Are we going to let the story
go?

Check out this Must read article about Abu Ghraib:

http://www.antiwar.com/justin/?articleid=2591

Another example of Fisk's excellent writing is included at the following URL:

http://www.robert-fisk.com/articles114.htm

Alpha · Posted: Fri May 28, 2004 8:57 am Post subject: The Israeli Torture Template

Senator Akaka (of Hawaii) asked General Miller during the recent Senate hearing who the third country nationals (referring to 'John Israel' and others mentioned in the Taguba Report) were, and General Miller refused to answer... One answer is so obviously Israel:

http://www.counterpunch.org/madsen05102004.html

May 10, 2004

The Israeli Torture Template
Rape, Feces and Urine-Dipped Cloth Sacks
By WAYNE MADSEN

With mounting evidence that a shadowy group of former Israeli Defense Force and General Security Service (Shin Bet) Arabic-speaking interrogators were hired by the Pentagon under a classified "carve out" sub-contract to brutally interrogate Iraqi prisoners at Baghdad's Abu Ghraib prison, one only needs to examine the record of abuse of Palestinian and Lebanese prisoners in Israel to understand what Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld meant, when referring to new, yet to be released photos and videos, he said, "if these images are released to the public, obviously its going to make matters worse."

According to a political appointee within the Bush administration and U.S. intelligence sources, the interrogators at Abu Ghraib included a number of Arabic-speaking Israelis who also helped U.S. interrogators develop the "R2I" (Resistance to Interrogation) techniques. Many of the torture methods were developed by the Israelis over many years of interrogating Arab prisoners on the occupied West Bank and in Israel itself.

Clues about worse photos and videos of abuse may be found in Israeli files about similar abuse of Palestinian and other Arab prisoners. In March 2000, a lawyer for a Lebanese prisoner kidnapped in 1994 by the Israelis in Lebanon claimed that his client had been subjected to torture, including rape. The type of compensation offered by Rumsfeld in his testimony has its roots in cases of Israeli torture of Arabs. In the case of the Lebanese man, said to have been raped by his Israeli captors, his lawyer demanded compensation of $1.47 million. The Public Committee Against Torture in Israel documented the types of torture meted out on Arab prisoners. Many of the tactics coincide with those contained in the Taguba report: beatings and prolonged periods handcuffed to furniture. In an article in the December 1998 issue of The Progressive, Rabbi Lynn Gottlieb reported on the treatment given to a 23-year old Palestinian held on "administrative detention." The prisoner was "cuffed behind a chair 17 hours a day for 120 days . . . [he] had his head covered with a sack, which was often dipped in urine or feces. Guards played loud music right next to his ears and frequently taunted him with threats of physical and sexual violence." If additional photos and videos document such practices, the Bush administration and the American people have, indeed, "seen nothing yet."

Although it is still largely undocumented if any of the contractor named in the report of General Antonio Taguba were associated with the Israeli military or intelligence services, it is noteworthy that one, John Israel, who was identified in the report as being employed by both CACI International of Arlington, Virginia, and Titan, Inc., of San Diego, may not have even been a U.S. citizen. The Taguba report states that Israel did not have a security clearance, a requirement for employment as an interrogator for CACI. According to CACI's web site, "a Top Secret Clearance (TS) that is current and US citizenship" are required for CACI interrogators working in Iraq. In addition, CACI requires that its interrogators "have at least two years experience as a military policeman or similar type of law enforcement/intelligence agency whereby the individual utilized interviewing techniques."

Speculation that "John Israel" may be an intelligence cover name has fueled speculation whether this individual could have been one of a number of Israeli interrogators hired under a classified contract. Because U.S. citizenship and documentation thereof are requirements for a U.S. security clearance, Israeli citizens would not be permitted to hold a Top Secret clearance. However, dual U.S.-Israeli citizens could have satisfied Pentagon requirements that interrogators hold U.S. citizenship and a Top Secret clearance. Although the Taguba report refers twice to Israel as an employee of Titan, the company claims he is one of their sub-contractors. CACI stated that one of the men listed in the report "is not and never has been a CACI employee" without providing more detail. A U.S. intelligence source revealed that in the world of intelligence "carve out" subcontracts such confusion is often the case with "plausible deniability" being a foremost concern.

In fact, the Taguba report does reference the presence of non-U.S. and non-Iraqi interrogators at Abu Ghraib. The report states, "In general, US civilian contract personnel (Titan Corporation, CACI, etc), third country nationals, and local contractors do not appear to be properly supervised within the detention facility at Abu Ghraib."

The Pentagon is clearly concerned about the outing of the Taguba report and its references to CACI, Titan, and third country nationals, which could permanently damage U.S. relations with Arab and Islamic nations. The Pentagon's angst may explain why the Taguba report is classified Secret No Foreign Dissemination.

The leak of the Taguba report was so radioactive, Daniel R. Dunn, the Information Assurance Officer for Douglas Feith's Office of the Under Secretary of Defense, Policy (Policy Automation Services Security Team), sent a May 6, 2004, For Official Use Only Urgent E-mail to Pentagon staffers stating, "THE INFORMATION CONTAINED IN THIS REPORT IS CLASSIFIED; DO NOT GO TO FOX NEWS TO READ OR OBTAIN A COPY." Considering Feith's close ties to the Israelis, such a reaction by his top computer security officer, a Certified Information System Security Professional (CISSP), is understandable, although considering the fact that CISSPs are to act on behalf of the public good, it is also regrettable..

The reference to "third country nationals" in a report that restricts its dissemination to U.S. coalition partners (Great Britain, Poland, Italy, etc.) is another indication of the possible involvement of Israelis in the interrogation of Iraqi prisoners. Knowledge that the U.S. may have been using Israeli interrogators could have severely fractured the Bush administration's tenuous "coalition of the willing' in Iraq. General Taguba's findings were transmitted to the Coalition Forces Land Component Command on March 9, 2004, just six days before the Spanish general election, one that the opposition anti-Iraq war Socialists won. The Spanish ultimately withdrew their forces from Iraq.

During his testimony before the Senate Armed Service Committee, Rumsfeld was pressed upon by Senator John McCain about the role of the private contractors in the interrogations and abuse. McCain asked Rumsfeld four pertinent questions, ". . . who was in charge? What agency or private contractor was in charge of the interrogations? Did they have authority over the guards? And what were the instructions that they gave to the guards?"

When Rumsfeld had problems answering McCain's question, Lt. Gen. Lance Smith, the Deputy Commander of the U.S. Central Command, said there were 37 contract interrogators used in Abu Ghraib. The two named contractors, CACI and Titan, have close ties to the Israeli military and technology communities. Last January 14, after Provost Marshal General of the Army, Major General Donald Ryder, had already uncovered abuse at Abu Ghraib, CACI's President and CEO, Dr. J.P. (Jack) London was receiving the Jerusalem Fund of Aish HaTorah's Albert Einstein Technology award at the Jerusalem City Hall, with right-wing Likud politician Israeli Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz and ultra-Orthodox United Torah Judaism party Jerusalem Mayor Uri Lupolianski in attendance. Oddly, CACI waited until February 2 to publicly announce the award in a press release. CACI has also received grants from U.S.-Israeli bi-national foundations.

Titan also has had close connections to Israeli interests. After his stint as CIA Director, James Woolsey served as a Titan director. Woolsey is an architect of America's Iraq policy and the chief proponent of and lobbyist for Ahmad Chalabi of the Iraqi National Congress. An adviser to the neo-conservative Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, Jewish Institute of National Security Affairs, Project for the New American Century, Center for Security Policy, Freedom House, and Committee for the Liberation of Iraq, Woolsey is close to Stephen Cambone, the Undersecretary of Defense for Intelligence, a key person in the chain of command who would have not only known about the torture tactics used by U.S. and Israeli interrogators in Iraq but who would have also approved them. Cambone was associated with the Project for the New American Century and is viewed as a member of Rumsfeld's neo-conservative "cabal" within the Pentagon.

Another person considered by Pentagon insiders to have been knowledgeable about the treatment of Iraqi prisoners is U.S. Army Col. Steven Bucci, a Green Beret and Rumsfeld's military assistant and chief traffic cop for the information flow to the Defense Secretary. According to Pentagon insiders, Bucci was involved in the direction of a special covert operations unit composed of former U.S. special operations personnel who answered to the Pentagon rather than the CIA's Special Activities Division, the agency's own paramilitary group. The Pentagon group included Arabic linguists and former members of the Green Berets and Delta Force who operated covertly in Iraq, Afghanistan, Iran, Pakistan, and Uzbekistan. Titan also uses linguists trained in the languages (Arabic, Dari, Farsi, Pashto, Urdu, and Tajik) of those same countries. It is not known if a link exists between Rumsfeld's covert operations unit and Titan's covert operations linguists.

Another Titan employee named in the Taguba report is Adel L. Nakhla. Nakhla is a name common among Egypt's Coptic Christian community, however, it is not known if Adel Nakhla is either an Egyptian-American or a national of Egypt. A CACI employee identified in the report, Steven Stephanowicz, is referred to as "Stefanowicz" in a number of articles on the prison abuse. Stefanowicz is the spelling used by Joe Ryan, another CACI employee assigned with Stefanowicz to Abu Ghraib. Ryan is a radio personality on KSTP, a conservative radio station in Minneapolis, who maintained a daily log of his activities in Iraq on the radio's web site before it was taken down. Ryan indicated that Stefanowicz (or Stephanowicz) continued to hold his interrogation job in Iraq even though General Taguba recommended he lose his security clearance and be terminated for the abuses at Abu Ghraib.

In an even more bizarre twist, the Philadelphia Daily News identified a former expatriate public relations specialist for the government of South Australia in Adelaide named Steve Stefanowicz as possibly being the same person identified in the Taguba report. In 2000, Stefanowicz, who grew up in the Philadelphia and Allentown areas, left for Australia. On September 16, 2001, he was quoted by the Sunday Mail of Adelaide on the 911 attacks. He said of the attacks, "It was one of the most incredible and most devastating things I have ever seen. I have been in constant contact with my family and friends in the US and the mood was very solemn and quiet. But this is progressing into anger." Stefanowicz returned to the United States and volunteered for the Navy in a reserve status. His mother told the Allentown Morning Call in April 2002 that Stefanowicz was stationed somewhere in the Middle East but did not know where because of what Stefanowicz said was "security concerns." His mother told the Philadelphia Daily News that her son was in Iraq but she knew nothing about his current status.

Wayne Madsen is a Washington, DC-based investigative journalist and columnist. He served in the National Security Agency (NSA) during the Reagan administration and wrote the introduction to Forbidden Truth. He is the co-author, with John Stanton, of "America's Nightmare: The Presidency of George Bush II." His forthcoming book is titled: "Jaded Tasks: Big Oil, Black Ops, and Brass Plates."

Madsen can be reached at: WMadsen777@aol.com

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

http://antiwar.com/justin/?articleid=2558

Who is John Israel?
He could be one of the secret masterminds behind the Abu Ghraib outrage

The blithering, the blathering, the pontification, and the grandstanding – that about describes the Senate Armed Services Committee hearings on the Abu Ghraib filth-fest. The Democrats were so hot to link Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld directly to the scandal, and the Republicans were so busy defending their man (and the war) that neither bothered much to mention the key culprits, as identified in the Taguba report:
"I find that there is sufficient credible information to warrant an Inquiry UP Procedure 15, AR 381-10, U.S. Army Intelligence Activities, be conducted to determine the extent of culpability of M[ilitary] I[intelligence] personnel, assigned to the 205th MI Brigade and the Joint Interrogation and Debriefing Center (JIDC) at Abu Ghraib (BCCF). Specifically, I suspect that COL Thomas M. Pappas, LTC Steve L. Jordan, Mr. Steven Stephanowicz [sic], and Mr. John Israel were either directly or indirectly responsible for the abuses at Abu Ghraib (BCCF) and strongly recommend immediate disciplinary action as described in the preceding paragraphs as well as the initiation of a Procedure 15 Inquiry to determine the full extent of their culpability."
Even when General Taguba went up to Capitol Hill and testified, along with the shifty-eyed undersecretary of defense for intelligence, Stephen A. Cambone, the senators spent so much time listening to the sound of their own voices, and scoring brownie points off one another, that the subject of the "private" contractors and the intelligence community's involvement in all this only came up briefly, like lightning illuminating a cloud-clogged sky.
It came up at the start of the hearing, but Senator John Warner, who even looks like a hawk – the beakish nose, the hooded eyes, the predatory glint in his eye – approached the subject gingerly:
SEN. WARNER: "I ask the same question to you. In simple laymen's language, so it can be understood, what do you think went wrong, in terms of the failure of discipline and the failure of this interrogation process to be consistent with known regulations, national and international? And also, to what extent do you have knowledge of any participation by other than U.S. military, namely Central Intelligence Agency and/or contractors, in the performance of the interrogations?"
GEN. TAGUBA: "Sir, as far as your last question, I'll answer that first. The comments about participation of other government agencies or contractors were related to us through interviews that we conducted. It was related to our examination of written statements and, of course, some other records. With regards to your first question, sir, there was a failure of leadership..."
The media has focused on this last phrase, probably because it not only seems to indict Rumsfeld but also because it's a made-to-order headline. But the first part of Taguba's answer is the most pertinent. Warner, obviously not eager to have the general go into detail in public, then answered his own question, referring to the over 1,000 pages of documentation submitted to the committee. In short, the answer to the senator's question was clearly yes, and the details were to be found in the classified documents that only members of the committee and other privileged characters would read.
So they blithered, and they blathered, and struck poses, and not until it came Senator Daniel K. Akaka's turn was any further light shed on the dark corners of this investigation. The Hawaii Democrat looked affable enough, and he was smiling, but his questions, when they came, cut straight to the heart of the matter:
SENATOR AKAKA: "General Taguba, in your report you reference the lack of supervision over U.S. civilian contractor personnel, third country nationals and local contractors within the detention facility at Abu Ghraib. During your investigation, did you determine how many civilian contract personnel were working there? Who supervised these individuals? And can you describe what you observed in terms of type of access these individuals had to the detainee areas?"
GEN. TAGUBA: "Sir, we did not make a determination of how many civilian contractors were assigned to the 205th MI Brigade and operating at Abu Ghraib. I personally interviewed a translator and I also personally interviewed an interrogator, both civilians, contractors. There was also a statement, and substantiated by the witnesses that we interviewed, of another translator, a third-country national in fact, that was involved. And there was another third- country national who was acting as a translator for the interrogators that was involved in one of the interrogation incidents where dogs were used. Their supervision, sir, from the best that we could determine or discern from the information that we gathered, was they were under the supervision of the Joint Interrogation and Debriefing Center, the JIDC, who is then under the supervision of one, a lieutenant colonel, who was also supervised by the brigade commander, the MI brigade commander. That was the chain, sir."
Third country nationals, eh? So what third country are we talking about? Britain? Canada, perhaps? I guess we can probably rule out Monaco.
The only translator identified in the Taguba report is John Israel, supposedly a "contract translator" employed by the Titan Corp. Mr. Israel is furthermore described as not having a security clearance, an unusual condition for someone in his position – unless, of course, he's not an American, in which case it would be perfectly understandable.
So far, very interesting. But then it got even more interesting:
SEN. AKAKA: "General Taguba, your report finds that two contractors were either directly or indirectly responsible for the abuses at Abu Ghraib. Were either of these contracted personnel supervising soldiers or in a position to direct soldiers to take specific actions?"
GEN. TAGUBA: "Sir, they were not in any way supervising any soldiers, MP or otherwise. However, the guards, those who were involved, looked at them as competent authority as in the manner by which they described them, as the MI or by name or by function."
A reasonable interpretation of Taguba's somewhat garbled answer is that, yes, the MPs and soldiers who committed sadistic outrages against detainees acted under the influence and at the instigation of those they believed to be intelligence officers, some of whom were "third country nationals."
Senator Akaka follows up with a question for Secretary Cambone: "What kind of training," he wanted to know, "did the U.S. civilian contractors have prior to going to Iraq?"
The look on Cambone's face made the whole dreary procedure worth it, I thought his eyebrows were going to fly right off.
It is no secret that the Israelis have been "advising" the Americans on how to run the occupation: after all, they have so much experience in the matter, and are more than eager to impart their hard-won expertise. The methods employed by Israeli security forces are quite different from those utilized by the U.S. military: the use of "limited" torture is okay by them, and the Palestinians are no strangers to the sort of treatment meted out to the inmates at Abu Ghraib. So when Senator Akaka asked Cambone what kind of training the contractors had received, my first thought was: The very best!
The Mossad is rightly feared throughout the Middle East, and the world, as the most ruthless (and daring) intelligence agency of them all. Only the KGB ever rivaled its reputation. That they would not hesitate to employ the sort of interrogation methods used to "soften up" the prisoners of Abu Ghraib is beyond dispute: just ask the Palestinians – and Human Rights Watch. That we have imported them, along with their methods, into Iraq seems altogether likely.
But, hey, wait a minute, how is it that American soldiers were taking orders from civilian contractors, never mind "third country nationals"? Senator Lindsey Graham (R-South Carolina) cleared that up when he put the question to Taguba pointblank:
SEN. GRAHAM: "Part of the defense that we're going to be hearing about in these court martials is that the people that we're charging are going to say this system that we see photographic evidence of, was at least encouraged if not directed by others. Do you think that's an accurate statement?"
GEN. TAGUBA: "Sir, I would say that they were probably influenced by others –"
SEN. GRAHAM: "Okay –"
GEN. TAGUBA: " – if not necessarily directed specifically by others."
As U.S. and, in all likelihood, Israeli intelligence officers looked on approvingly, Trailer-Park Lynndie and her ex-prison guard boyfriend, with the active collaboration of the other MPs, systematically abused and degraded the inmates. So much of this nightmare scenario – the hooded prisoners forced to engage in behavior looked on with utter horror in Muslim society – seems like such a gift to Osama bin Laden that the revelation of Israeli involvement gives the whole affair a surreal quality.
For the role of CIA overseer, I nominate Steven Stefanowicz, the 34-year-old ex-Navy reservist, now a civilian interrogator supposedly employed by CACI International, who emigrated to Australia, before 9/11, and worked in "information technology" in the city of Adelaide, where – he says – he became engaged to be married. As detailed in my last column, Stefanowicz alleges he underwent a transformation after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, and returned to the U.S. determined to get in on the fight, though in what capacity was never quite clear. Now it turns out he had bragged to his friends that he had joined the CIA, according to a piece in the Philadelphia Daily News:
"The Philadelphia-area native at the center of the Iraq torture scandal has reportedly told friends he wants to get out of there right away and return to Australia, where he claimed three years ago he was joining the CIA. 'It's safe to say I've seen enough for a lifetime here in Iraq, and it's definitely time to come home,' Steve Stefanowicz reportedly said in an e-mail to a friend in the southern Australian city of Adelaide. He apparently meant Adelaide and not Telford, the Montgomery County, Pa., suburb where he was reared.
"Meanwhile, another Australian friend told the Daily News in an e-mail that in fall 2001 'Steve announced to all of his friends that he was leaving Adelaide to return to America to work for the Central Intelligence Agency.'"
Alas, the Australians don't seem all that eager to have him. Justice Minister Chris Ellison said Stefanowicz "would not be welcome in Australia," according to the Herald Sun newspaper:
"'We do not hold Australia out as a haven for anyone who has broken the law and is trying to evade it,' Senator Ellison said. He said he was not aware of the details of the case but Australia would be prepared to help the U.S. in any investigation into Mr. Stefanowicz. 'We would receive any request for assistance sympathetically,' he said."
Yeah, well if I were Senator Ellison I wouldn't hold my breath. This is one refugee from the law that many in Washington would just as soon see the back of. The same goes for the mysterious John Israel, about whom next to nothing is known – except that, according to the London Telegraph,
"Mr. Israel has left Iraq while Mr. Stefanowicz is 'on leave' pending inquiries that could lead to criminal charges being brought against them."
Mr. Israel has skipped town for parts unknown, and Stefanowicz is trying to get to Australia, where he supposedly is going to marry a woman he describes as his fiancée. Except that she isn't. This news story describes Joanna Buttfield as an "former girlfriend" coming to Stefanowicz's defense. Another Australian account also refers to their relationship in the past tense, and cites this very interesting tidbit from Ms. Buttfield:
"Mr. Stefanowicz had refused to discuss details of his life as a U.S. Army reservist, she said. 'We both made a conscious decision not to talk about it because there was so much he couldn't talk about,' she said. 'It was the source of some frustration. He'd say, 'I can't talk about that'."
For a CIA guy, however, he sure sounds like a bit of a loser, and not exactly low-profile. His Australian friends are coming out of the woodwork, and talking to the newspapers:
"'The events of 9/11 had nothing to do with his motivation to return to the U.S. ,' South Philadelphia native Sam Krupsky, now an executive with the Australian Rail Track Corp., wrote [to the Philadelphia Daily News]. "He was out of work and out of luck, and left because he had no prospects here.'
"…Krupsky, the Australian rail-track worker who was born in Philadelphia and who moved to Adelaide in the mid-1970s to play semi-pro basketball, cast doubt on Stefanowicz's skills. 'Steve tried hard for a couple of months to find a job here, but was always unsuccessful because he kept freaking out all of his potential employers,' Krupsky wrote. He said Stefanowicz had boasted to friends on his arrival in Australia that he'd turned down a job offer from the CIA."
After 9/11, did he take them up on their offer – and proceed to "freak out" his new employers to a degree that not even the catty Krupsky could have imagined?
If Stefanowicz is employed by the CIA, then he certainly didn't try to keep it very secret. He was very visible, even prior to his notoriety, due to the efforts of his mother who founded a chapter of the Blue Star Mothers in their home town, and was featured on the DoD's "Defend America" website, invoking her son as a kind of patriotic model. In the wake of the scandal, a number of accounts have been published of his early history and the course of his career, both here and in Australia. We know he graduated from Souderton Area High School in 1988, and that, in 1998, he joined a Naval Reserve program. We also know that, for whatever reason, after 9/11 he quit his job in Australia as an "information technology recruiter" and went back to the U.S., where he volunteered for active duty. The Washington Post reports that "he served in Muscat, Oman, for most of 2002, and his rank is listed as intelligence specialist 3rd class. Stefanowicz, who received a number of military awards, including a medal for meritorious service, left his last post, at Willow Grove, Pa., last September." Friends of the family say he became a civilian to take a job with CACI. Of the key role Stefanowicz played in the torture chambers of Abu Ghraib, the Taguba report is unequivocal. According to General Taguba, Stefanowicz:
"Allowed and/or instructed MPs, who were not trained in interrogation techniques, to facilitate interrogations by 'setting conditions' which were neither authorized and in accordance with applicable regulations/policy. He clearly knew his instructions equated to physical abuse."
However, the General gets a bit murky when it comes to detailing the specifics against John Israel, who, in addition to not having a security clearance, is found to have
"Denied ever having seen interrogation processes in violation of the IROE, which is contrary to several witness statements."
And that is it.
While we know plenty about Stefanowicz, what's extremely odd is that nothing comparable has come out about the other civilian contractor named by General Taguba as having "direct or indirect" responsibility for the Abu Ghraib house of horrors. We don't know how old "John Israel" is, where he lives, where he was born, or what he looks like – nothing.
We don't even know where he is. All we know is that, according to the Telegraph, he's flown the coop. Gee, I'll bet Army Specialist Jeremy Sivits, who faces court martial, a stiff jail sentence, and worldwide calumny as the "torturer of Abu Ghraib," wishes he could do the same.
If the Israelis are involved in this maelstrom of evil to some extent, then the U.S. is taking the fall for them. Just as Sivits and the others are taking the fall for the intelligence officers who directed the Abu Ghraib horror show – and are so far getting away with reprimands, and relative anonymity.
– Justin Raimondo

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The following URL (link) will take you right to Seymour Hersh's latest article for the New Yorker magazine which is a must read at your earliest convenience:

http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/?040524fa_fact

Amy Goodman did an excellent interview with Seymour Hersh this morning on the 'Democracy Now' radio program that she hosts (as you can listen to the interview via clicking on the link for it after accessing the following URL as Hersh discusses his article - the one which is linked above):

Rumsfeld Knew: Iraq Prison Abuse Part of Pentagon-Approved Black Ops Program:

http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=04/05/17/1431219

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Looks like the Israeli association to the intelligence/torture is completely being white- washed for Israel (read former Republican Congressman Paul Findley's 'They Dare to Speak Out' book to see why) as the following article (URL) also conveys how closely tied the US is to Israeli 'anti-terror' tactics:

http://www.dailystar.com.lb/article.asp?edition_id=10&categ_id=2&article_id=
3446

Israeli link possible in US torture techniques
By Ali Abunimah
Special to The Daily Star
Tuesday, May 11, 2004

In exchange for interrogation training, did Washington award security
contracts?

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Israeli lessons for the US in Iraq:

http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/C182D988-28E3-4D48-ADFC-F15D6509B0EC.htm

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NEOCON PENTAGON OFFICIAL CLASHES WITH GENERAL TAGUBA:

http://www.warwithoutend.co.uk/middle-east-and-asia/2004/05/12/officials-clash-on-roles-at-iraq-prison.php

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Is Israel behind the orders for the tortures in Iraq?:

http://www.warwithoutend.co.uk/middle-east-and-asia/2004/05/09/is-israel-behind-the-orders-for-the-tortures-in-iraq.php

Jason Vest had earlier written the 'Men from JINSA and CSP' article
( http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20020902&s=vest ) for 'The Nation' about the JINSA/PNAC Neocon cabal at the Pentagon as he just came out with the following article for 'The Nation' as well which connects the neocons to the torture in the Iraqi prison (s). You can also listen his excellent interview about such on the 'To the Point' national radio program from earlier today on your computer via the following URL:

http://www.moretothepoint.com/cgi-bin/db/kcrw.pl?show_code=tp&air_date=5/18/04&tmplt_type=Show

Jason Vest's latest article can be found on the web at:

http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20040531&s=vest2

PENTAGON NEOCON CABAL ORDERED IRAQ PRISON TORTURE:

http://www.warwithoutend.co.uk/middle-east-and-asia/2004/05/17/pentagon-neocon-cabal-ordered-iraq-prison-torture.php

Alpha · Posted: Sat May 29, 2004 9:17 am Post subject: Agencies Mum On Israel Inquiry

Agencies Mum On Israel Inquiry

http://www.the-signal.com/News/ViewStory.asp?storyID=4752

5/29/2004
Leon Worden City Editor

While seven lower-level Army reserve guards have been charged in the Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse scandal, including one who has already pleaded guilty, government officials remained tight-lipped Friday about the fate of four higher-ups who evidently remain free despite allegations that they orchestrated the torture.
John B. Israel, 48, of Canyon Country, is one of the four men identified in an Army report as having been ?directly or indirectly responsible for the abuses at Abu Ghraib.? A civilian, Israel worked as an interpreter under contract with Army intelligence.
Israel returned to Santa Clarita around April 1 and has not responded to messages left this week at his home. His wife said Wednesday he has not yet hired an attorney.
Defense Department and Justice Department officials pointed fingers at each other when asked Friday which agency is following up on Maj. Gen. Antonio Taguba?s call for a formal inquiry into Israel?s activities.
?The lead agency is the Department of Justice,? said a Defense Department spokesman who refused to provide his name.
The Washington Post reported last week that the Justice Department had opened a criminal investigation of an unidentified civilian contractor with ties to Abu Ghraib.
However, Justice Department spokesman Robert Nardoza told The Signal on Friday that his office is not conducting an investigation. He referred inquiries to the Defense Department ?because they are investigating it.?
Vartan Djihanian, press deputy to U.S. Rep. Howard ?Buck? McKeon ? Israel?s congressional representative and a House Armed Services Committee member ? said he has been unable to learn what agency may be conducting an inquiry.
Staff members of the House Armed Services Committee were equally in the dark.
The unnamed Defense Department spokesman did say Army investigators ?will leave no stone unturned to make sure it doesn?t happen again? but refused to disclose whether current investigations include the activities of civilian contractors like Israel.
An Iraqi-born American linguist, Israel is one of two high-level civilians Taguba accused of responsibility for the actions of prison guards.
The other civilian is Steven A. Stephanowicz, sometimes spelled Stefanowicz, a 34-year-old ex-Navy reservist from Philadelphia who worked under contract as an interrogator.
Stephanowicz?s attorney, Henry E. Hockeimer Jr., did not return calls Friday. The Washington Post quoted him May 11 as saying his client?s conduct at the prison ?was both appropriate and authorized.?
Submitted in early March, Taguba?s report on abuses at Abu Ghraib paints a picture of a prison where military police units lacked training and civilian contractors lacked supervision.
Although military police are barred by policy from participating in interrogations by military intelligence personnel, Taguba found that intelligence officers and other interrogators ?actively requested that MP guards set physical and mental conditions for favorable interrogation of witnesses.?
From October to December, setting ?conditions for favorable interrogation? at Abu Ghraib meant things like sodomizing detainees and forcing them to masturbate.
In Senate testimony, Taguba said the guards considered the two civilian intelligence experts, Israel and Stephanowicz, ?as competent authority? to give instructions.
In his report, Taguba determined that Stephanowicz ?instructed MPs, who were not trained in interrogation techniques, to facilitate interrogations by ?setting conditions? which were (not) authorized.?
?He clearly knew his instructions equated to physical abuse,? Taguba wrote.
He said Israel claimed not to have observed abusive interrogations despite several witness statements to the contrary.
Taguba recommended that Stephanowicz be fired and Israel be reprimanded, and that both men be subjected to a formal military inquiry.
Civilian contractors who commit crimes while working overseas for the military can be prosecuted under the Military Extraterritorial Jurisdiction Act of 1999.
The law applies to military personnel and civilian employees who ?(engage) in conduct outside the United States that would constitute an offense punishable by imprisonment for more than one year if the conduct had been engaged in within the ... United States.?
?If it (the investigation of Israel) goes through the (Department of Justice), then it will be handled through that law,? said Djihanian, McKeon?s spokesman.
Attorney General John Ashcroft has said civilian contractors could be prosecuted for violations of civil rights and anti-torture statutes.

Signal staff writer Judy Ann Mook contributed to this story.

Alpha

AP: Intelligence Agents Encouraged Abuse

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20040529/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/military_intelligence_abuse

2 hours, 52 minutes ago
Add White House - AP Cabinet & State to My Yahoo!

By MATT KELLEY, Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON - Several U.S. guards allege they witnessed military intelligence operatives encouraging the abuse of Iraqi prison inmates at four prisons other than Abu Ghraib, investigative documents show.

Court transcripts and Army investigator interviews provide the broadest view of evidence that abuses, from forcing inmates to stand in hoods in 120-degree heat to punching them, occurred at a Marine detention camp and three Army prison sites in Iraq (news - web sites) besides Abu Ghraib.
That is the prison outside Baghdad that was the site of widely published and televised photographs of abuse of Iraqi detainees by Army troops.
Testimony about tactics used at a Marine prisoner of war camp near Nasiriyah also raises the question whether coercive techniques were standard procedure for military intelligence units in different service branches and throughout Iraq.
At the Marines' Camp Whitehorse, the guards were told to keep enemy prisoners of war — EPWs, in military jargon — standing for 50 minutes each hour for up to 10 hours. They would then be interrogated by "human exploitation teams," or HETs, comprising intelligence specialists.
"The 50/10 technique was used to break down the EPWs and make it easier for the HET member to get information from them," Marine Cpl. Otis Antoine, a guard at Camp Whitehorse, testified at a military court hearing in February.
U.S. military officials say American troops in Iraq are required to follow the Geneva Conventions on POWs for all detainees in Iraq. Those conventions prohibit "physical or moral coercion" or cruel treatment.
The Army's intelligence chief told a Senate panel this month that intelligence soldiers are trained to follow Geneva Convention rules strictly.
"Our training manuals specifically prohibit the abuse of detainees, and we ensure all of our soldiers trained as interrogators receive this training," Lt. Gen. Keith Alexander told the Senate Armed Services Committee (news - web sites).
The Marine Corps judge hearing the Camp Whitehorse case wrote that forcing hooded, handcuffed prisoners to stand for 50 minutes every hour in the 120-degree desert could be a Geneva Convention violation. Col. William V. Gallo wrote that such actions "could easily form the basis of a law of war violation if committed by an enemy combatant."
Two Marines face charges in the June 2003 death of Nagem Sadoon Hatab at Camp Whitehorse, although no one is charged with killing him. Military records say Hatab was asphyxiated when a Marine guard grabbed his throat in an attempt to move him, accidentally breaking a bone that cut off his air supply. Another Marine is charged with kicking Hatab in the chest in the hours before his death.
Army Maj. Gen. George Fay is finishing an investigation into military intelligence management and practices at Abu Ghraib and elsewhere in Iraq. Alexander and other top military intelligence officials say they never gave orders that would have encouraged abuses.
"If we have a problem, if it is an intel oversight problem, if it is an MP (military police) problem, or if it's a leadership problem, we have to get to the bottom of this," Alexander told the Senate panel.
Most of the seven enlisted soldiers charged in the Abu Ghraib abuses say they were encouraged to "soften up" prisoners for interrogators through humiliation and beatings. Several witnesses also report seeing military intelligence operatives hit Abu Ghraib prisoners, strip them naked and order them to be kept awake for long periods.
Other accusations against military intelligence troops include:
_Stuffing an Iraqi general into a sleeping bag, sitting on his chest and covering his mouth during an interrogation at a prison camp at Qaim, near the border with Syria. The general died during that interrogation, although he also had been questioned by CIA (news - web sites) operatives in the days before his death.
_Choking, beating and pulling the hair of detainees at an Army prison camp near Samarra, north of Baghdad.

_Hitting prisoners and putting them in painful positions for hours at Camp Cropper, a prison at Baghdad International Airport for prominent former Iraqi officials.
Military officials say they're investigating all of those incidents.
One focus of the incident at Qaim is Chief Warrant Officer Lewis Welshover, an interrogator with the Army's 66th Military Intelligence Group. Welshover told The Associated Press on Friday: "I am not at liberty to discuss any of the details."
Welshover was part of a two-person interrogation team that questioned former Iraqi Air Force Maj. Gen. Abed Hamed Mowhoush, 57. Military autopsy records say Mowhoush was asphyxiated by chest compression and smothering.
Army officials say members of a California Army National Guard military intelligence unit are accused of abusing prisoners at a camp near Samarra, north of Baghdad. The New York Times has reported those accusations include pulling prisoners' hair, beating them and choking them to force them to give information.
The Red Cross complained to the military in July that Camp Cropper inmates had been kept in painful "stress positions" for up to four hours and had been struck by military intelligence soldiers.
One of the military intelligence soldiers interviewed in the Abu Ghraib probe claimed some prisoners were beaten before they arrived at Camp Cropper.
Cpl. Robert Bruttomesso of the 325th Military Intelligence Battalion told Army investigators he reported that abuse to his chain of command. The report of his interview, obtained by The Associated Press, does not include details on what action, if any, Bruttomesso's commanders took.

Alpha

Just saw the following on the AOL newsgroups:

Message 1 of 1 Subject 11 of 50
Subject: ABUSING PRISONERS WAS STANDARD OPERATING PROCEDURE
Date: 5/27/04 10:03 PM Pacific Daylight Time
From: RT218
MsgId: <20040528010307.15012.00005942@mbs-r04.aol.com>

New Photos Show Abu Ghraib Tactics
NBC, MSNBC News

Wednesday 26 May 2004

Naked Iraqis interrogated aggressively in images.

WASHINGTON - A series of photographs obtained exclusively by NBC News depicts what sources said was the aggressive interrogation of three naked Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib, the detention facility outside Baghdad that is at the center of the scandal over U.S. mistreatment of Iraqi detainees.
In one of the photos, a U.S. soldier can be seen pressing his knee into the neck of one of the three prisoners, who have been forced to huddle together on the floor.
Sources told NBC News that some of the men in the photos were U.S. military intelligence officers who appeared to be directing the interrogation. One of the men identified as a military intelligence officer appears to have thrown an unidentified object at the prisoners.
The involvement of military intelligence officers in encouraging abuse of detainees has emerged as a central question in the scandal at Abu Ghraib. Military police are responsible for guarding prisoners but are not supposed to be involved in interrogations.
But a report by Maj. Gen. Antonio M. Taguba, who led the Army's investigation of the abuses at Abu Ghraib, quoted the testimony of a sergeant at the prison who said military intelligence officers lobbied guards to abuse detainees to 'loosen them up' for interrogation.
Seven soldiers have been court-martialed in the scandal, one of whom has pleaded guilty. The facility's commander, Brig. Gen. Janis Karpinski, could face administrative action or criminal charges and has been suspended from command.
Standard operating procedure?
It was not clear to what extent the new photographs, which were provided to NBC News on condition that their source not be revealed, showed standard procedures at Abu Ghraib.
NBC News' Robert Windrem reported from New York that the prisoners were being interrogated in connection with the shooting of a military police sergeant by a detainee, not as part of an intelligence interview.
That could suggest that the interrogation session was not representative of normal tactics used at the prison, where hundreds of photographs and video clips have depicted U.S. guards abusing and sexually humiliating Iraqi prisoners.
Taguba's report blamed, in part, a confused chain of command after Nov. 19, when the 205th Military Intelligence Brigade was given responsibility for Abu Ghraib and authority over the 800th Military Police Brigade. He reiterated that guards should play no role in the interrogation of prisoners.
Members of Congress from both parties complained Wednesday that while an expanded report by Taguba was delivered as promised, as many as 2,000 pages considered vital to the investigation were missing.
Congressional sources told NBC News that the missing documents included a written report from Maj. Gen. Geoffrey Miller that apparently lays out aggressive interrogation tactics for Abu Ghraib. Miller was recently reassigned to Iraq after spending 17 months as commander of operations at the U.S. detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
Also missing was key testimony from Col. Thomas Pappas, the commander of military intelligence at Abu Ghraib, the sources said.
Lawrence Di Rita, a spokesman for the Defense Department, characterized the missing documents Wednesday as insignificant, saying the information was 'available otherwise.'
Abuse could be widespread
Former Vice President Al Gore, meanwhile, demanded Wednesday that Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and other top Bush administration officials resign for encouraging policies that led to the abuse, which could be more widespread than previously known.
The New York Times reported Wednesday that an Army synopsis of deaths and mistreatment involving prisoners in U.S. custody in Iraq and Afghanistan showed a pattern of abuse involving more military units.
The summary, dated May 5, was prepared by the Criminal Investigation Command at the request of Army officials, according to the newspaper. It outlines the status of investigations into 36 cases, including the continuing probe at Abu Ghraib, the paper said.
The Iraq cases date to April 2003, the Times reported. In an incident reported to have taken place last month, a prisoner detained by Navy commandos died in a suspected case of homicide blamed on 'blunt force trauma to the torso and positional asphyxia,' the paper said.
One of the oldest cases listed in the May 5 document involves the death of a prisoner in Afghanistan in December 2002, the paper said.
The document said enlisted personnel from a military intelligence unit at Fort Bragg, N.C., and an Army reserve military police unit from Ohio were thought to have been 'involved at various times in assaulting and mistreating the detainee,' according to the Times.
Members of the 223rd Military Intelligence Battalion, which is part of the California National Guard, were accused of abusing Iraqi detainees last spring in Samarra, north of Baghdad, the Times reported.
The Army summary said the unidentified enlisted personnel 'forced into asphyxiations numerous detainees in an attempt to obtain information' over a 10-week period, according to the paper.
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By MSNBC.com's Alex Johnson with NBC's Jim Miklaszewski in Washington and Robert Windrem in New York. Reuters contributed to this report.

Message 1 of 2 Subject 2 of 50
Subject: CACI in hot water
Date: 5/28/04 10:04 PM Pacific Daylight Time
From: BikerNeena
MsgId: <20040529010408.06028.00008389@mbs-m03.aol.com>

Its time to pay the piper.

CACI Faces New Probe Of Contract (washingtonpost.com)
CACI Faces New Probe Of Contract
Interrogators Hired Under Army IT Deal

... CACI shares have fallen 18 percent since April 30, the Friday before reports broke that one of its interrogators, Steven A. Stefanowicz, was implicated in an Army investigation into abuse of Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib prison in Baghdad.

CACI chief executive J.P. "Jack" London said the GSA is investigating how the company was able to use an information technology contract to hire and supply civilian interrogators to the Army. "That's the scope, at least at this point, of their investigation," London said in a conference call with analysts.

"If there have been some mistakes on our part from the contracting side, inadvertently, we will work diligently to correct them," London said. "We anticipate that the government will accept our efforts to remedy these problems and that either any suspension or debarment actions will not be needed."

The GSA sent a letter to CACI on Wednesday requesting information about the contract, said Mary Alice Johnson, a GSA spokeswoman. "The suspension and debarment official of GSA . . . asked CACI to come in and talk," Johnson said. "Some things have come to that individual's attention and he has asked the company to come in and discuss them."

London said CACI is aware of four other investigations into the company's involvement at Abu Ghraib in addition to the GSA's. Those include inquiries by the Army's Office of the Inspector General, the Defense Contract Audit Agency, the military intelligence investigation led by Maj. Gen. George R. Fay and the Interior Department's inspector general.

An Army report on Abu Ghraib accused Stefanowicz of encouraging soldiers to set conditions for interrogations and said he "clearly knew his instructions equated to physical abuse." Stefanowicz's lawyer has said his client was wrongly accused.

CACI's interrogation work for the Defense Department was done under a contract managed by the Interior Department. The contract was a blanket-purchase agreement, a type of contract that is large and vaguely worded to give agencies flexibility and to speed up purchases. CACI's contract was designed for purchases of information technology services and equipment, but the Interior Department's contracting officer approved an Army request to use the contract to buy interrogation services.

The GSA, in addition to the Interior Department, has oversight over the contract because it monitors large blanket-purchase agreements for federal supplies and services.

Johnson said companies are required to notify contracting officials if their government clients are requesting products or services that fall "outside the scope of their contract." She said that there is no set penalty for contractors that do not comply, but that GSA can impose a range of enforcement actions, including temporary and permanent suspensions.

Federal laws require agencies to award contracts to companies that have records of integrity and business ethics. Contracting officers must consider criminal, civil or administrative violations or complaints in deciding whether to ban a company from federal work.

"When the government's overhead agency says [a contract can be used] to buy apples and oranges, you can't say, 'Oh, we'd like to buy a chair,' " said Daniel J. Guttman, a fellow at the Center for the Study of American Government at Johns Hopkins University. "Technically that's against the law. . . . It's basically a blatant avoidance of the competitive process."

Other experts said contractors and agencies commonly ignored such restrictions and, until now, such violations got little attention.

"This is an issue that comes up all the time and it frankly makes government contractors uncomfortable. If your customer comes to you and says they want to buy something, you're not going to say you won't sell it to them," said Terry L. Albertson, a lawyer with Crowell & Moring LLP who specializes in government contracts.

Philip Finnegan, director of corporate analysis with the Teal Group Corp., a consulting firm in Fairfax, said that in the past it would be rare for a company to be barred for such a violation. "But nonetheless this investigation and this announcement create a lot of uncertainty about the company," he said.

Brett B. Lambert, executive vice president of DFI International Inc., a defense consulting and research firm, predicted that only a part of the company would be barred from government work if the GSA takes action. He said that is unlikely given how such incidents have been handled in the past.

WorldCom Inc. (now MCI Inc.) wasn't hurt much when it was suspended from getting new federal contracts for five months last year after it admitted violations of accounting rules. During that period it still received contracts under a waiver.

CACI, which got 92 percent of its revenue from federal clients in 2003, has 6,300 employees, more than half of whom work in the Washington region.

Staff writer Renae Merle contributed to this report.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Iraq Prison Guards Heeded SCV (Santa Clarita Valley) Translator
http://www.the-signal.com/News/ViewStory.asp?storyID=4733

5/28/2004
Leon Worden City Editor

When Maj. Gen. Antonio Taguba told the Senate Armed Services Committee that two professional civilian contractors gave direction ? if not exactly orders ? to the guards at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, one of the civilians he referred to was a 48-year-old Santa Clarita resident.
John Benjamin Israel, an Iraqi-born American interpreter from Canyon Country, was ?either directly or indirectly responsible? for the mistreatment of Iraqi detainees, according to Taguba?s classified report on the improper interrogation tactics at the prison outside Baghdad.
Taguba completed the report in early March, and it was mistakenly released in late April.
Israel could not be reached Thursday. On Wednesday, his wife, Roza Israel, refused to discuss the allegations.
?I?m instructed not to say anything until we get an attorney,? she said.
Israel came to Santa Clarita from San Fernando around 1995 with Roza and their three daughters. They purchased their current home shortly after it was built seven years ago.
While one neighbor described Israel on Wednesday as a loner, others said Thursday that he is friendly and mild-mannered.
?He seems to be a very nice man. It seems so out of character that he would be accused of that,? said Blanche Muscia, who lives next door and frequently chats with Roza.
?He usually doesn?t speak until he?s spoken to,? Muscia said. ?I don?t think he has it in him to hit a man.?
John Israel reportedly told Army investigators he arrived in Iraq on Oct. 14 to work as an interpreter at Abu Ghraib under contract for Army intelligence. Muscia said Israel was back home in Santa Clarita the first week of April.
?He was an interpreter,? the neighbor said. ?I assumed he (served as) a go-between between the Americans and the Iraqis.?
Muscia said that prior to October, she knew Israel as ?a computer guy,? but he seemed to like his new job.
?I saw him a few weeks ago and he said he was going back to Iraq,? she said. ?I asked him why. It?s so dangerous. He said he needed the money.?
?He was really bent on going back. He said, ?I want to help my people. It?s my duty to try to help them.??
?He?s a Christian,? she added.
But Israel didn?t return to Iraq. By late April the so-called Taguba report had gone public and the Senate was gearing up for hearings.
Taguba?s report names only one interpreter ? John Israel ? and one interrogator, Steve Stephanowicz, a 34-year-old Philadelphia native recently living in Australia.
In his May 11 Senate testimony, Taguba said he ?personally interviewed a translator and I also personally interviewed an interrogator, both civilian contractors? ? referring to Stephanowicz, who did the interrogating, and Israel, who did the translating.
Taguba said the prison guards considered the two men their superiors, although the pair didn?t command any U.S. troops.
?They were not in any way supervising any soldiers, (military police) or otherwise,? Taguba told the Senate Armed Services Committee. ?However, the guards, those who were involved, looked at them as competent authority as in the manner by which they described them ? as ?the MI? (military intelligence officer), or by name, or by function.?
Taguba testified that the civilian interrogator and interpreter answered to the Joint Interrogation and Debriefing Center, which answered to a lieutenant colonel, Steve L. Jordan, who answered to the brigade commander, Col. Thomas M. Pappas.
?That was the chain (of command), sir,? Taguba told Sen. Daniel K. Akaka, D-Hawaii.
In his classified report, Taguba said the responsibility for the ?sadistic, blatant, and wanton criminal abuses? of prisoners, including stripping them naked and handcuffing them in painful positions, fell on the four men. He said Pappas, Jordan, Stephanowicz and Israel ?were either directly or indirectly responsible for the abuses at Abu Ghraib,? and he recommended ?immediate disciplinary action ... as well as the initiation of (an) inquiry to determine the full extent of their culpability.?
?At the end of the day,? Taguba told the Senate panel, ?a few soldiers and civilians conspired to abuse and conduct egregious acts of violence against detainees and other civilians outside the bounds of international law and the Geneva Convention.?
The Military Extraterritorial Jurisdiction Act of 1999 allows for the prosecution of civilian contractors who commit crimes while working overseas for the military. Attorney General John Ashcroft has said civilian contractors involved in the mistreatment or murder of Iraqi prisoners could be prosecuted for civil rights violations and for breaking anti-torture laws.
A spokesman for U.S. Rep. Howard ?Buck? McKeon, a member of the House Armed Services Committee and John Israel?s congressional representative, referred questions to the Army?s public affairs office.
?We believe that we are a democratic country and we will let the DOD (Department of Defense) investigation follow its proper course to get to the bottom of it,? McKeon spokesman Vartan Djihanian said.
An Army public affairs official wasn?t sure who is investigating civilian contractors implicated in the prison scandal.
?My best guess, and it?s only a guess, is that it would be the Army?s Criminal Investigation Command or the Department of Justice,? Army spokeswoman Deborah Parker said.
Justice officials did not return calls.
Reporting from inside Abu Ghraib prison earlier this month, a correspondent for the London Telegraph confirmed that Israel had left Iraq and reported that Stephanowicz was on leave from CACI International Inc., a private intelligence firm based in Richmond, Va., ?pending inquiries that could lead to criminal charges being brought against them.?
Israel worked through SOS Interpreting Ltd., a New York-based translation service whose stated specialties include intelligence, counterintelligence, force protection and ?psychological operations? for government agencies. SOS is under contract with Titan Corp. of San Diego to provide linguistic services at Abu Ghraib.
An SOS executive told The Signal on Thursday that Israel still works for the company and could not be contacted.
?We are not providing access to John Israel at this point,? Chief Financial Officer Bruce Crowell said in a phone message.
Another SOS official said Israel is on temporary assignment.
?It is true that John Israel works here,? Crowell said in a subsequent telephone interview. ?We are not at liberty to make any further comments, other than what we have said in a prepared statement.?
The statement said, ?SOS Interpreting Ltd. is a subcontractor to Titan (Corp.), responsible for employing, and then secunding (sic) to Titan and ultimately the Army, interpreters. SOS understands that the government is conducting reviews that may relate to issues regarding this subcontract. SOS intends to cooperate with the Army and Titan. It would be premature to comment further at this time.?
Crowell declined to answer questions about his company?s employment requirements. In its online job postings, SOS tends to advertise for U.S. citizens or longtime U.S. residents, and it pays about $75,000 for translation work overseas.
Public records show Israel owns his home. His 1993 bankruptcy was discharged in 2002.
Although prison translators require a U.S. security clearance, an Army spokeswoman couldn't corroborate Israel's citizenship and referred questions about his nationality to Titan.
A Titan executive said Israel is a U.S. citizen and he dismissed the current chatroom ?buzz? that he might be a foreign agent.
?I do know he?s an American,? Titan spokesman Will Williams said. ?Because of his last name, I have never in my life seen so much speculation. ... He?s just an American interpreter working for a subcontractor.?
One inconsistency in Taguba?s report is the listing of Israel as an employee of both Titan and CACI. He was not directly employed by Titan, and a personnel executive with CACI said Thursday she was unfamiliar with him.
The London Telegraph said three CACI contractors are still working with 30 military intelligence interrogators at Abu Ghraib and another six are employed as screeners to process detainees and determine whether they have any intelligence value. About 20 contract employees from SOS and Titan are still working at the prison as linguists.
Col. Foster Payne, newly in charge of interrogations at Abu Ghraib, defended the use of civilian contractors.
?They?re professionals in their own right,? Payne told The Telegraph. ?They have wide experience in the field and contribute to the team.?
?We?ve taken the actions of two people (Israel and Stephanowicz) and now we?re questioning whether we need to use contractors,? Payne lamented.
The scandal prompted a complete troop overhaul in February. The Telegraph reported that the ?abuse appears to have been stamped out? although a tour of the facility revealed that living conditions were still ?miserable and highly dangerous.?

Signal staff writers Lila Campuzano, Burt Stillar, Judy Ann Mook, Brandon Lowrey and Diana Sevanian contributed to this story.

Additional material (related to John Israel) appears at the following URL:

http://www.warwithoutend.co.uk/middle-east-and-asia/2004/05/28/scv-man-john-israel-linked-to-iraq-prison-torture-abuse.php

http://www.the-signal.com (another article by Leon Worden appears at www.the-signal.com tomorrow):

SCV Man Linked to Iraq Abuse

5/27/2004
Leon Worden City Editor

A Canyon Country man is one of four people accused of being responsible for
abuse at the Abu Ghraib prison outside Baghdad.
An Army report implicates John B. Israel, a 48-year-old civilian
contractor hired by the Army as a translator, as “either directly or
indirectly responsible for the abuses at Abu Ghraib.”
Maj. Gen. Antonio Taguba’s report on the abuse of prisoners — the
so-called “Taguba Report” — also accuses Israel of lying to Army
investigators about witnessing improper interrogations.
The report shows there was a breakdown in command authority and a
blurring of the lines between interpreting and interrogating at the prison.
It quotes military prison guards as saying both military intelligence
officers and civilian contractors encouraged abuses, including stripping
prisoners naked and handcuffing them in painful positions.
In his report, Taguba calls for a formal inquiry to determine the guilt
of intelligence personnel at the prison. He writes:
“Specifically, I suspect that Col. Thomas M. Pappas, LTC Steve L.
Jordan, Mr. Steven Stephanowicz, and Mr. John Israel were either directly or
indirectly responsible for the abuses at Abu Ghraib, and strongly recommend
immediate disciplinary action ... as well as the initiation of (an) inquiry
to determine the full extent of their culpability.”
Pappas was the commander of the 205th Military Intelligence Brigade.
Jordan is the former director of the Joint Interrogation and Debriefing
Center. Stephanowicz is a civilian interrogator working under contract.
Taguba recommended that a formal reprimand go into Israel’s personnel
file because he lacked the required security clearance and he wrongfully
denied having seen interrogation processes that violated the Interrogation
Rules of Engagement.
According to The New York Times, Israel told Army investigators in a
brief written statement that he arrived in Iraq on Oct. 14 and served as a
translator for military intelligence. Asked if he had “witnessed any acts of
abuse,” he wrote, “No I have not.”
According to the Taguba report, several witnesses said he did.
Israel is believed to have returned to the Santa Clarita Valley from
Iraq about a month ago.
Contacted by The Signal at their home in a newer Canyon Country
neighborhood, Israel’s wife, Roza, acknowledged hearing about the
allegations but refused to comment on them.
“I’m instructed not to say anything until we get an attorney,” she said
Wednesday. “I haven’t even had an opportunity to discuss it with (John).”
Her husband is out of town until next week and has not yet hired an
attorney, she said.
Born in Baghdad in 1955, Israel is described as an Iraqi-American
Christian. His home was still decorated for Christmas on Wednesday. The
Israels have lived in Santa Clarita with their three daughters for about 10
years and in their current house for a portion of that time.
A neighbor described them as loners who live modestly.
“They keep to themselves,” said the neighbor, who asked not to be
identified. “They’re flat-out unfriendly.”
“It’s pretty scary living next door to somebody accused of that, with
the state that the world is in,” she said. “It’s disturbing.”
The New York Times said Israel traveled Monday to the Washington, D.C.,
offices of his employer, SOS Interpreting Ltd. His continued employment
could not be verified Wednesday.
Based in New York, SOS is a 15-year-old company that, according to its
online job posting for an Arabic linguist, specializes in translation,
interpretation and foreign language training as well as “intelligence,
counterintelligence, psychological operations, counterterrorism,
counter-narcotics, peacekeeping and civil affairs, force protection, private
security” and related information services. Its job listings call for
applications from U.S. citizens.
SOS performed translating services for the Army Intelligence and
Security Command at Abu Ghraib. On Monday the company issued a statement
saying it “fully intends to cooperate with the Army and with Titan.”
Titan Corp. is a San Diego-based defense firm that subcontracted the
translation work to SOS. Titan President Gene Ray expressed his company’s
“distress and dismay over the horrific events at the Abu Ghraib prison in
Iraq” in a May 7 statement.
“To clarify inaccuracies in a number of news media reports,” his
statement said, “Titan’s role in Iraq is to serve as translators and
interpreters for the U.S. Army. The company’s contract is for linguists, not
interrogators.”
Only one of the 15 Titan and SOS translators working at Abu Ghraib last
fall possessed the necessary security clearance, the Taguba reported
indicated.
Titan has fired one interpreter, Adel L. Nakhla, of Gaithersburg, Md.,
whom Taguba named as a suspect.
Shareholders of Titan, a public company listed on the New York Stock
Exchange, will vote June 7 on a planned takeover by Lockheed Martin Corp.
The merger was delayed pending the outcome of an internal investigation into
alleged payments by Titan or its subsidiaries to foreign officials.
On May 17, Titan announced it has won a four-year contract potentially
worth $15 million to provide intelligence services to the Navy's Space and
Naval Warfare Systems Command Systems Center in San Diego.

The Associated Press contributed to this story.

Alpha · Posted: Sun May 30, 2004 1:32 pm Post subject: Israel Hires Ex-O.J. Prosecutor

http://www.the-signal.com/News/ViewStory.asp?storyID=4755

http://www.scvhistory.com/scvhistory/signal/iraq/

Israel Hires Ex-O.J. Prosecutor
Canyon Country man is ?just a translator? and had ?no say-so in anything? at Abu Ghraib, wife says

5/30/2004
Leon Worden City Editor

John B. Israel has hired a prominent Los Angeles law firm to fend off allegations that he shared responsibility for the abuse last fall at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq.
Israel, 48, of Canyon Country, hired attorney Christopher Darden and an associate late last week, his wife told The Signal on Saturday.
She said her husband will not be a scapegoat.
Darden, a onetime Los Angeles County deputy district attorney, is best known for having been a prosecutor in the 1995 murder trial of O.J. Simpson. Darden subsequently went into private practice.
Darden said he is "not making any statements whatsoever at this time."
From Oct. 14 until earlier this year, Israel was a civilian contractor for Army intelligence at the prison. He is one of four men accused by Army Maj. Gen. Antonio Taguba as having been ?directly or indirectly responsible for the abuses at Abu Ghraib.?
But his wife, Roza Israel, said he had no authority there.
?He?s just a translator,? she said Saturday at her home. ?He is not an interrogator. He has no say-so in anything.?
She said the blame is being misdirected.
?If they need to find a scapegoat, it?s not going to be him,? she said. ?His job was translating. That?s it.?
She refused to disclose Israel?s whereabouts other than to say he is in the United States. Last week his employer, SOS Interpreting Ltd., with offices in New York City and Fairfax, Va., said he was unavailable.
Roza Israel said her husband ?went (to Iraq) to serve his country, to protect our children, your children, everyone?s children.?
?It didn?t work out that way,? she said.
They have three daughters.
?The truth will come out soon,? she said, adding, ?I don?t like the media to make a big issue out of nothing.?
Roza said her family has lived in Santa Clarita since 1988. They have owned their current home since it was built in 1996.
She wouldn?t say what her husband did for a living prior to his translating job at Abu Ghraib.
A neighbor said she knew him as ?a computer guy? before October and described him last week as ?a very nice man.? She said he wanted to return to Iraq when they last spoke in late April.
?He was really bent on going back. He said, ?I want to help my people. It?s my duty to try to help them.? He?s a Christian,? the neighbor said.
Israel was born in Baghdad in 1955. He is a U.S. citizen, said a spokesman for Titan Corp., an intelligence firm that subcontracted the prison translation work to SOS.
Taguba recommended a formal inquiry to determine the extent of Israel?s culpability. Defense Department and Justice Department officials could not confirm Friday that any investigation is underway.

Alpha

Civilian contractors suspected in abuses in a legal gray area

http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/world/iraq/20040529-9999-1n29law.html

By David Washburn and Bruce V. Bigelow

UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITERS

May 29, 2004 An untested law that experts say contains significant loopholes appears to be the best weapon the Justice Department has to prosecute civilian contractors allegedly involved in the abuse at Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison. Although one U.S. soldier has been convicted and six others face military charges of assault, mistreatment and indecent acts for suspected actions at the prison near Baghdad, the legal standard is far less certain for prosecuting American civilian contractors who are implicated. Legal experts say the statute that most probably would apply to civilian contractors, including those from San Diego's Titan Corp., is the Military Extraterritorial Jurisdiction Act of 2000. However, the government has yet to convict anyone under the law, and its authors say it wasn't written with a case like this in mind. U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft announced May 21 that the Justice Department was investigating the involvement of civilian contractors in the Abu Ghraib scandal. Later that day, Titan fired Adel L. Nakhla, a linguist identified as a suspect in an Army report on the prison abuses. Nakhla told Army investigators that he witnessed abuses by military personnel, and The Wall Street Journal has reported that he admitted to sexually humiliating prisoners. There is less information on John B. Israel, a Titan subcontractor identified in the Army investigation as "either directly or indirectly" responsible for some abuses. Titan officials have declined to comment, except to say they will take necessary action if their employees are found to have engaged in any wrongdoing. Two laws that aim to prevent wartime atrocities, the Torture Victims Protection Act of 1991 and the War Crimes Act of 1996, can be applied to civilian contractors, say legal experts and human-rights advocates. But experts say those laws carry a relatively high threshold and convicting civilians could be difficult under either act if the contractors played only supporting roles in the abuses. It is also highly unlikely that Iraqi courts have jurisdiction over U.S. contractors. The workers are protected by what is known as a status-of-forces agreement, which basically says U.S. contractors are immune to the Iraqi legal process, said David Hammond, a partner at Washington, D.C.-based Crowell & Moring, a firm specializing in government contract law. That leaves the Military Extraterritorial Jurisdiction Act, which enables the Justice Department to prosecute U.S. civilians who commit crimes on foreign soil while employed by the Pentagon or while accompanying military personnel. But using the act to prosecute civilian abusers of Iraqi prisoners was not something congressional sponsors considered when they drafted the legislation. "The last thing we envisioned was a case like this," said Michael Brumas, a spokesman for Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., who wrote the bill. Sessions, a former U.S. attorney, sponsored the legislation in 2000 after a judge ruled that there was no applicable law for prosecuting an Army sergeant's husband accused of molesting his stepdaughter at a U.S. base in Germany. The law has gone untested since President Clinton signed it in October 2000, with the first case to be prosecuted under the act scheduled to begin July 13 before U.S. District Judge Nora Manella in Los Angeles. Latasha Lorraine Arnt, 24, was indicted under the Military Extraterritorial Jurisdiction Act for second-degree murder after the stabbing death of her husband, Air Force Staff Sgt. Matthias A. Arnt III, at the Incirlik Air Base in Turkey. Because she was a civilian accompanying her husband overseas, Arnt could not be tried under the Uniform Code of Military Justice. Legal experts point to caveats in the law that could pose problems for the Justice Department in the Iraq contractor cases if prosecutors decide there is sufficient evidence to prosecute. For example, the law applies only to felony crimes that would carry a sentence of more than a year in prison if they were committed in the United States. If there were clear and convincing evidence of physical abuse by the contractors, the government could bring felony charges. But evidence on the contractors thus far seems murky, Hammond and others said. "If all someone did was interpret, then how do you deal with that person?" asked Michael Nardotti Jr., a former judge advocate general of the Army. "Is strictly the humiliation of a prisoner enough for a felony?" Military law is much clearer, and specifically addresses criminal behavior during interrogations. Nardotti said the Uniform Code of Military Justice, which covers the soldiers involved in the abuses, allows for charges such as cruelty, maltreatment and dereliction of duty. Army Spc. Jeremy Sivits received the maximum sentence of a year in prison and a bad-conduct discharge May 19 for his role in the abuse after pleading guilty on all three military charges at a special court-martial held in Baghdad. As part of his plea, Sivits agreed to testify against other soldiers charged in the mistreatment of Iraqis at Abu Ghraib. However, there are no parallels in federal law covering civilians, Nardotti said. Justice Department representatives declined to answer questions concerning the investigation or which statutes government lawyers might use to prosecute the contractors. Legal experts say another loophole in the Military Extraterritorial Jurisdiction Act is that the law covers contractors only for the Defense Department. That omission is important because U.S. authorities are investigating at least two cases involving Central Intelligence Agency contract interrogators. "Obviously, (the act) was passed to plug a hole," Hammond said. "It plugged it for (the Defense Department), but doesn't appear to plug it for other agencies." This could pose a problem if the Justice Department decides to prosecute civilian interrogators working for CACI International, a Virginia-based defense contractor, who have been implicated in the abuses. It appears the Army hired the interrogators under an umbrella contract issued by the Interior Department. However, the experts said the Military Extraterritorial Jurisdiction Act most probably applies because the interrogators were clearly accompanying military personnel. "I think the statute has to be read in a common-sense way," said Eugene Fidell, a military law expert at the Washington-based law firm of Feldesman Tucker Leifer Fidell. "The Army was sufficiently involved in this contract. The Army was the user of the services." Also, the law may not apply to third-country nationals working as contractors, such as Titan linguists from Jordan, Egypt or even Canada. With more than 20,000 contractors working in Iraq, the Defense Department should have anticipated such issues, said Daniel Guttman, a lawyer and fellow at the Center for the Study of American Government at Johns Hopkins University. Failure to do so is an example of the poor planning for postwar Iraq, he said. "It's one thing not to have intelligence on the ground for (weapons of mass destruction), but we have plenty of lawyers in Washington who knew for years that this was a problem that we needed to address," Guttman said. U.S. Rep. David Price, D-N.C., has proposed legislation that would close some of the loopholes. Also, the Defense Department in March proposed a rule change that would "address issues related to contract performance outside the United States." However, Guttman and others are not sure how the rule could be applied to cases like the Abu Ghraib abuses. "This is going to be a fascinating chapter in the legal history of the war on terrorism," Fidell said.
David Washburn: (619) 542-4582; david.washburn@uniontrib.com

War Without End

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SCV Man (John Israel) Linked to Iraq Prison Torture Abuse